Thursday, March 1, 2012

7 Isabella Baumfree: Wool & Slavery in New York

Wool quilt from an online auction.

Wools are harder to date than cottons because

they change so little over the decades.

Early-19th-century needleworkers chose from a variety of bedcover styles with wool quilts--- pieced, embroidered and quilted--- an alternative to cotton or silk spreads. Some of the fabric in surviving wool quilts was imported: camblets, calimancoes and satinets---but much was domestic---worsteds, woolens, jeans cloth and hickory cloth.

Calimanco is satin-weave wool polished to look like silk with

reflective qualities perfect for elegant wholecloth quilts.

The reverse of many calimanco quilts is

utilitarian wool of coarser yarns in plain weave.

American wool production suffered in comparison to England's because of limited sheep stock. Domestic flocks made better mutton than fabric.

Raising sheep along the Hudson in Ulster County, NY

Upstate New York produced a good share of domesticwool at the turn of the 19th-century. Dutch-speaking descendants of Niue Amsterdam’s farmerscontinued to keep sheep as they had for generations. Embargoes and war inspired a few innovators to improve their flocks with Spanish merinos.

Breeding Merino with domestic herds

improved wool quality over the decades.

Isabella Baumfree, about 15 years old when the war began, was a slave in this Dutch-speaking rural culture South of Albany near the Hudson. Born in Ulster County about 1797 to James Bomefree or Baumfree (perhaps named " tree" in Dutch for his height, a gift to his daughter) and his third wife Bett.

Ulster County in yellow

By the end of the war the girl had been sold three times. She had given birth to a daughter Diana and was entering into a marriage with a fellow slave named Thomas by whom she had five more children.

Baroness Hyde-de-Neuville lived in America during the teens and painted this portrait of an enslaved washerwoman about Isabella's age.

For their children Isabella and Thomas had hopes for a future in freedom. Months after Isabella’s birth the state of New York had decreed that any slaves born after July 4, 1799 would be freed when they reached the age of 28 for men and 25 for women.Isabella, born before that date, was to remain enslaved for life. The children, born after 1799, would remain indentured for years. Diana, for example, could expect to be free in the 1840s, 25 years into the future.

Isabella about 1860. This photo shows her crippled hand, injured during slavery. Her master told her he'd extend her time as once injured she was of less use to him.

Laws changed after the war and a new date for freedom was set for all: the Fourth of July, 1827. Isabella’s master’s family decided to recoup some of their investment in her by illegally selling her seven-year-old son to an Alabama plantation where he would be enslaved forever. (Isabella went to court to reclaim him.) Her last duty as a slave, she wrote, was to spin 100 pounds of wool into the fall.

"The subject of this narrative was to have been free July 4, 1827, but she continued with her master till the wool was spun, and the heaviest of the 'fall's work' closed up, when she concluded to take her freedom into her own hands, and seek her fortune in some other place."

But in 1812-1814 this was all in the future. During the war Isabella's fate was to be a slave for life. And some of her fate was spinning wool.

Wool wholecloth quilt from an online auction.

We see no reflective shine in the photo so we can guess the fabric on the face is not the fancier polished wools.

Not only must we reconcile our images of domestic life in the teens with the concept of Northern slavery, we also have to reconcile slavery with the quilts made anywhere in the United States at that time.

Embroidered wool bedcover, New York, dated

December 26, 1815 and signed by Polly Delano

Who spun the wool for these blankets, spreads and quilts? Who wove it? Who quilted it? Who pieced it?

Wool quilt thought to have been made about 1820

from Laura Fisher's store

Once free, Isabella led an interesting life first as Isabella and later as Sojourner Truth. Read her Narrative of Sojourner Truth by clicking here.

A famous public speaker against slavery and for the rights of women, she spoke English with a Dutch accent. An excellent promoter, she made a living selling copies of her book and portraits of herself﻿.

Isabella with her workbag.

She sold many card-sized portraits.

"I sell the shadow to support the Substance."

In March the topic will be early wool quilts

See below for information about these Sketches of America

It’s hard for us to reconcile the reality of slavery with our image of New York’s small country villages so far from a Southern plantation, but slavery was always there. We only know Isabella’s story because she reinvented herself in the 1840s as Sojourner Truth and dictated her best-selling Narrative of her life.

REPRODUCTION QUILTS CIRCA 1812

FROM BARBARA BRACKMANThis blog was created to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812. The last post was in 2012 but the information is useful. Click on the picture to see a summary post.

The Picture Above

It's a photo-manipulated version of an 1814 peace poster with America and Britannia. I added Judy Severson's 2011 reproduction quilt top The Seaflower.

WHY NOT A BLOCK OF THE MONTH?

Block-style sampler quilts were not yet the fashion. Patchwork circa 1812 was often organized into medallion or strip set. Pattern ideas were rather limited to simple stars & 9-patches. Over the year we'll offer techniques and patterns for more traditional sets.

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"DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY"

Even those of us who know a lot about American history find this era a blur. First of all: Why was everybody so mad? Blame it on Napoleon. Our "War of 1812" was one battle front in the world-wide Napoleonic Wars from 1800-1815. Click on the cartoon to read a more complex version of history from the Library of Congress.

Early Quilts in the Quilt Index

The Quilt Index has a series of essays. See one I've written on Early Quilts by clicking on the photo. As you read the essay click on the quilts in the right column.

LATELY ARRIVED FROM LONDON

My period prints from Moda from Fall, 2011 are still available. Click on the photo to see a PDF with lots of pictures

YOUR 1812 SCRAPBAG: ROCOCO

Rococo---Curves & Cartouches. Click on the chintz to read more.

YOUR 1812 SCRAPBAG:PILLAR PRINTS

Click on the print to read more about architecural prints.

YOUR 1812 SCRAPBAG White-Ground Chintz

Large scale prints, chintzes, were the fashion. Click on the reproduction print to read more.

YOUR 1812 SCRAPBAG: BIRD CHINTZ

Game birds and palm trees. They loved it. Click on the picture to read more.

YOUR 1812 SCRAPBAGFancy Machine Grounds

The latest technology made roller-printed backgrounds possible. See more about these grounds (backgrounds) by clicking on the photo of a reproduction print.

YOUR 1812 SCRAPBAG: Eccentrics

The teens were a time of great change in printing technology. One innovation: eccentric prints. If you want to be up to date in 1814 you need them. Click on the picture to read more.